Inhale, Exhale
by FuckMePumps
Summary: Hawkeye would do anything to keep him breathing. Anything. [Royai]
1. In Sync

**Supposed to be a one-shot. Decided to be cruel and it became a mini-series. Four parts. Completely yet subtly Royai. Pure torture for your guys. Enjoy!**

**-**

She watches him gaze idly at the monotonous sights in the window. He sighs, repositions his arm, eyes drooping heavily. Trips like these bored him to the point of restlessness, with a lot of controlled fidgeting, drumming fingers, and the occasional burst of flame catching on a curtain. Sometimes he'd stand up and walk down the aisle and back again, just for something to devote his attention to.

She wonders why he doesn't just watch her like she does him (what's the use of sitting across each other if you can't do so?), then the thought kills itself in her mind before she herself can. She's done this so many times it was becoming more than a habit, but an impulse.

She remembered suddenly why she hated traveling by train.

She noticed everything about him, from the way the corners of his mouth curled upwards just so when he thought no one was looking to how, when you call to him, his voice is gruff and sounds unused at first when he replies as if he'd been so deep in thought he forgot how to speak.

She just didn't want to think about why he seems to look at her and not see, not realize, as if he was looking through her, not really knowing her. Like she wouldn't die for him.

The rest of the car's occupants were unsettlingly quiet, as they were.

In those few hours of stillness her world was enclosed solely in the flashing of the barren land outside and the sound of their breaths, synchronized so that you couldn't tell them apart.

-

**More action later. If there is a later. Depends on whether or not you**

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	2. Breathless

**Eight reviews. Not bad for my actual first FMA fic.**

**I don't own FMA.**

**-**

The first time she feels, _really_ feels his touch is by a mistake, but not necessarily an accident.

He was going out again that night with a new woman, and the entire office knew even before she did, gossiping their worth. It had taken all restraint she had not to shoot them all dead.

Needless to say, that confirmed her temperament for the day.

It was nearing dusk when he'd had enough of her mood and strolled over to her desk, making her look up at the portrait of the sun's red-orange glows shadowing over the hollows of his face.

He says "Hawkeye," slowly, just about sternly, but not quite. She catches his drift quickly and her cheeks would have burned hot with shame if she were any other woman. She thought she had proved herself above this petty jealousy and unrequited love was just so _cliché._

"Forgive my character, sir. I will strive to be more…"

Then he takes her chin in his hand to make her eyes meet directly with his ink black ones.

"Amiable," nearly breathlessly.

"Riza," so tenderly she can hardly believe he said it, his voice gliding across her name while his mouth formed it. Pale, warm knuckles brushed ever-so soft on her cheekbones.

"You must understand," closer, closer, "I get too easily distracted." So close she could feel the air he exhaled on her lips.

His eyes held hers in place, a finger lightly tracing her jaw line. _What did he mean by that?_

Her breath hitched, and she blinked.

And the moment was gone.

-

**Btw, if it seems so… incoherent, please do remember that this was supposed to be a one-shot, hence the disjointedness. I just finished this, it'll have four chapters… unless I decide to continue. And I will, if you**

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	3. Still Rising

"So, how about you and me take the day off? It's a beautiful day, and…" He stretched his arms for emphasis, exaggeratedly basking in the mild heat and cool breeze of the afternoon.

She tried her best to keep the bemused expression off her face, and cut him off. "Sir, if I may…?"

"Go ahead, First Lieutenant."

"I'll shoot you before I let you ignore your paperwork again. You know it's due today."

He frowned. For a minute there she actually thought she offended him. Not that she cared too much, now.

Then his bottomless eyes squinted and he threw his head back for a few rare instances of real, guttural laughter.

"But seriously, Hawkeye, you need to see things for what they are, and what they're not.

"It's not like they'll be here forever."

She didn't hear the last sentence, for she saw the glint of something metallic a couple of meters away, over the colonel's shoulder. Panic raked her mind and the next few seconds felt like a lifetime.

Her brain whirred into action, possible plans of action playing themselves in her head for fractions of a second.

It would take too long, maybe a second too long, to whip out her own gun and fire back. If she shouted out he would take a few seconds to react, and it might be too late. So the only solution would be…

She seized his arm and threw herself on him before she could even think about it.

"Hawkeye, what do you think you're…" He trailed off as a gunshot resounded, and blood spurted into red droplets on his cheek.

She didn't close her eyes then.

A bullet had imbedded itself in her shoulder, three seconds after she saw the gunman, and she landed on top of him with her blood staining his clothes. He got and up and laid her down flat on her back, then stood up. Her senses dulled at that moment.

She heard the colonel yelling, and three other gunshots as Havoc counter-attacked several times, not hitting the assassin as precisely as she would have.

Her eyes were still open as the colonel blurred himself into view, hovering over her and checking her statistics, warm body pressed to hers. There was a fuzzy ringing in her ears and she could barely stay conscious.

"Hawkeye, do you hear me? Listen: whatever you do, don't close your eyes. I know it's hard and…" It _was_ hard; the sound of his voice alone could lull her to sleep.

But she couldn't help it, she was so tired, and her shoulder hurt a lot, more than it should have (the bullet must have hit bone, then), and someone was singing her a song, somewhere far away, and it went something like…

"Damn it, Hawkeye! I said don't close your eyes; that's an order!" He barked, with the slightest tinge of dread and anxiety to his voice. It made the lullaby so much more beautiful that it already was, because it made it clear that someone actually cared for her, that _he_ cared for her…

"Hawkeye, hold on, please just hold on, just for a minute…" the melody was down to a whisper even as shouts of alarm erupted around it; somehow desperate, somehow pleading.

"I'm sorry, sir…" she groaned; he took it for one of pain. He must be _so_ disappointed at her for disobeying…

But then again, she felt his chest rising and falling with hers, felt his ribs enclose his expanding lungs, and felt his heart still beating almost in sync with her own. He was still alive, still breathing, always breathing… as long as she's here, she wouldn't let him stop, not even if it meant that she would cease doing so instead.

At this, a smile graced her lips as her world vanished into oblivion.

-

**I love Royai. I seriously do. It's not obvious, isn't it? Anyway, I decided I won't update until I get eight reviews. And there are two more chapters waiting, you know, so you better**

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	4. Stay Here

**My first finished FMA fic. I'm so proud of me… **

**Btw, thanks to everyone who gave me such overwhelming feedback! You guys are much loved…**

**I don't own FMA.**

**-**

_She was in a movie. It was dark, it was night. There was something sinister that lingered in the surroundings. She was alone, with her pulse rate drumming in her mind._

_The movie was a suspense._

_She heard the click of a revolver and in one direction an assailant materialized, face contorted in a malevolent smile and arm extended with a gun trapped in his fingers. _

_The movie was an action._

"_Hawkeye…" the usually brisk tone was weak and she turned around for familiarity. Instead, she saw her greatest fear not just haunting her, but coming true. _

_Her colonel was on the ground, clasping at the hole in his stomach from which flowed bright, fresh, red blood, his black eyes glazing over._

"_No, no…please no…" The hand that held her pistol at her side limped, and she dropped on her knees._

"_You…" A crimson stream trailed from the corner of the colonel's mouth. "…failed me." _

"_Colonel!" She screamed when his eyes closed, when he stopped moving. _

_She scrambled to where he lay, crawling on her hands and knees to shake him awake, to shake him alive. "Roy! Roy Mustang! Colonel! No!"_

_She sobbed as the killer's maniacal laugh furthered the violence, her words becoming inaudible as they rushed into hopeless apologies._

"_I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"_

_Icy steel against the nape of her neck as her tears cooled against his pale, cold skin. She wanted the trigger to be pulled so desperately, so that she can want to live in death, to live for him. _

"_I'm sorry!"_

_BANG!_

_The movie was a tragedy._

_But it wasn't a memory._

Because when she woke up two days later in Central's medical ward, it was to his voice ("Wake up, Hawkeye") and the comforting reassurance of his steady, warm breath blowing in her ear, she knew she had done her duty. Dreams can lie; no, no, _nightmares _lied, while dreams _hoped_.

Because he was still here, giving her something to live for, someone to protect, a reason to exist.

And he was breathing, like she was now. _Still breathing, always breathing…_

And when the day comes that she cannot force the oxygen back in his lungs time and time again, she would be sure to follow him in suffocation.

_**fin**_

-

**Officially over. But watch out for more, I'm on a writing roll!**

**And before you leave, please **

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